pulling and packing of figs form one of the most important industries of the people.
This fruit still constitutes a large part of the food of the natives of western Asia and southern Europe, both in the fresh and dried state. A sort of cake made by mashing up the inferior kinds serves in parts of the Archipelago as a substitute for bread. Alcohol is obtained from fermented figs in some southern countries; and a kind of wine, still made from the ripe fruit, was known to the ancients, and mentioned by Pliny under the name of sycites. Medicinally the fig is employed as a gentle laxative, when eaten abundantly often proving useful in chronic constipation; it forms a part of the well-known “confection of senna.” The milky juice of the stems and leaves is very acrid, and has been used in some countries for raising blisters. The wood is porous and of little value; though a piece, saturated with oil and spread with emery, is in France a common substitute for a hone.
The fig is grown for its fresh fruit (eaten as an article of dessert) in all the milder parts of Europe, and in the United States, with protection in winter, succeeds as far north as Pennsylvania. The fig was introduced into England by Cardinal Pole, from Italy, early in the 16th century. It lives to a great age, and along the southern coast of England bears fruit abundantly as a standard; but in Scotland and in many parts of England a south wall is indispensable for its successful cultivation out of doors.
Fig trees are propagated by cuttings, which should be put into pots, and placed in a gentle hotbed. They may be obtained more speedily from layers, which should consist of two or three years old shoots, and these, when rooted, will form plants ready to bear fruit the first or second year after planting. The best soil for a fig border is a friable loam, not too rich, but well drained; a chalky subsoil is congenial to the tree, and, to correct the tendency to over-luxuriance of growth, the roots should be confined within spaces surrounded by a wall enclosing an area of about a square yard. The sandy soil of Argenteuil, near Paris, suits the fig remarkably well; but the best trees are those which grow in old quarries, where their roots are free from stagnant water, and where they are sheltered from cold, while exposed to a very hot sun, which ripens the fruit perfectly. The fig succeeds well planted in a paved court against a building with a south aspect.
The fig tree naturally produces two sets of shoots and two crops of fruit in the season. The first shoots generally show young figs in July and August, but these in the climate of England very seldom ripen, and should therefore be rubbed off. The late or midsummer shoots likewise put forth fruit-buds, which, however, do not develop themselves till the following spring; and these form the only crop of figs on which the British gardener can depend.
The fig tree grown as a standard should get very little pruning, the effect of cutting being to stimulate the buds to push shoots too vigorous for bearing. When grown against a wall, it has been recommended that a single stem should be trained to the height of a foot. Above this a shoot should be trained to the right, and another to the left; from these principals two other subdivisions should be encouraged, and trained 15 in. apart; and along these branches, at distances of about 8 in., shoots for bearing, as nearly as possible of equal vigour, should be encouraged. The bearing shoots produced along the leading branches should be trained in at full length, and in autumn every alternate one should be cut back to one eye. In the following summer the trained shoots should bear and ripen fruit, and then be cut back in autumn to one eye, while shoots from the bases of those cut back the previous autumn should be trained for succession. In this way every leading branch will be furnished alternately with bearing and successional shoots.
When protection is necessary, as it may be in severe winters, though it is too often provided in excess, spruce branches have been found to answer the purpose exceedingly well, owing to the fact that their leaves drop off gradually when the weather becomes milder in spring, and when the trees require less protection and more light and air. The principal part requiring protection is the main stem, which is more tender than the young wood.
In forcing, the fig requires more heat than the vine to bring it into leaf. It may be subjected to a temperature of 50° at night, and from 60° to 65° in the day, and this should afterwards be increased to 60° and 65° by night, and 70° to 75° by day, or even higher by sun heat, giving plenty of air at the same time. In this temperature the evaporation from the leaves is very great, and this must be replaced and the wants of the swelling fruit supplied by daily watering, by syringing the foliage, and by moistening the floor, this atmospheric moisture being also necessary to keep down the red spider. When the crop begins to ripen, a moderately dry atmosphere should be maintained, with abundant ventilation when the weather permits.
The fig tree is easily cultivated in pots, and by introducing the plants into heat in succession the fruiting season may be considerably extended. The plants should be potted in turfy loam mixed with charcoal and old mortar rubbish, and in summer top-dressings of rotten manure, with manure water two or three times a week, will be beneficial. While the fruit is swelling, the pots should be plunged in a bed of fermenting leaves.
The following are a few of the best figs; those marked F, are good forcing sorts, and those marked W. suitable for walls:—
Agen: brownish-green, turbinate.
Brown Ischia, F.: chestnut-coloured, roundish-turbinate.
Brown Turkey (Lee’s Perpetual), F., W.: purplish-brown, turbinate.
Brunswick, W.: brownish-green, pyriform.
Col di Signora Bianca, F.: greenish-yellow, pyriform.
Col di Signora Nero: dark chocolate, pyriform.
Early Violet, F.: brownish-purple, roundish.
Grizzly Bourjassotte: chocolate, round.
Grosse Monstreuse de Lipari: pale chestnut, turbinate.
Negro Largo, F.: black, long pyriform.
White Ischia, F.: greenish-yellow, roundish-obovate.
White Marseilles, F., W.: pale green, roundish-obovate.
The sycamore fig, Ficus Sycomorus, is a tree of large size, with heart-shaped leaves, which, from their fancied resemblance to those of the mulberry, gave origin to the name Συκόμορος. From the deep shade cast by its spreading branches, it is a favourite tree in Egypt and Syria, being often planted along roads and near houses. It bears a sweet edible fruit, somewhat like that of the common fig, but produced in racemes on the older boughs. The apex of the fruit is sometimes removed, or an incision made in it, to induce earlier ripening. The ancients, after soaking it in water, preserved it like the common fig. The porous wood is only fit for fuel.
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| Figure 2.—India-rubber Tree, Ficus elastica, showing spreading woody roots. |
The sacred fig, peepul, or bo, Ficus religiosa, a large tree with heart-shaped, long-pointed leaves on slender footstalks, is much grown in southern Asia. The leaves are used for tanning, and afford lac, and a gum resembling caoutchouc is obtained from the juice; but in India it is chiefly planted with a religious object, being regarded as sacred by both Brahmans and Buddhists. The former believe that the last avatar of Vishnu took place beneath its shade. A gigantic bo, described by Sir J. Emerson Tennent as growing near Anarajapoora, in Ceylon, is, if tradition may be trusted, one of the oldest trees in the world. It is said to have been a branch of the tree under which Gautama Buddha became endued with his divine powers, and has always been held in the greatest veneration. The figs, however, hold as important a place in the religious fables of the East as the ash in the myths of Scandinavia.
Ficus elastica, the India-rubber tree (figure 2), the large, oblong, glossy leaves, and pink buds of which are so familiar in our greenhouses, furnishes most of the caoutchouc obtained from the East Indies. It grows to a large size, and is remarkable
